Marriage Teaching (May 98)

How Did Christ Give Himself to the Church?
May 1998
by Rich Murphy

What can $1 do?

Mike and Jill were out antique shopping. It wasn’t Mike’s idea of a perfect Saturday morning, but Jill really enjoyed looking at all that old junk. Since it was important to Jill, Mike had decided it was important to him too.
About half way through the morning, they stopped at a convenience store for a cup of coffee. Larry, Mike’s partner at work, was there filling up the gas tank of his old truck.
“What’s up Larry?” asked Mike.
“Just got back from the lake,” answered Larry, “the fishing was great this morning! What are you up to today?”
Mike said, “Jill wanted to go shopping, so we’re hitting the antique stores.”
“I don’t know how you can do that,” was Larry’s retort,” I can’t stand to go shopping with my wife. I’d rather give her the credit cards, and let her go on her own. Besides, she has her things she likes to do, and I have mine. It keeps us out of each other’s hair”

What exactly is laying down one’s life? Yes, we know that Jesus laid down his life by going to the cross, but what does it mean on a day to day basis?
We obviously can’t die every time a friend has a need. Nor would that be of any help toward meeting the need in most cases. There must be a different definition that can be applied to “laying down” your life. A definition that might involve laying down only part of one’s life.
In the story above, Mike laid down his life for his wife, Jill. He did this by changing his priorities. Instead of going fishing with Larry, which he would have really loved to do, he went antique shopping with Jill. Using this, we can define “laying down one’s life” as “setting aside one’s own desires.”
Doing this is obviously an act of the will. Making a quality decision to prioritize on God’s priorities, or our spouse’s priorities means that we have to place our will over our desires. Since, as Christians, we have submitted our will to God, it actually means that we put God’s will over our priorities.
So, what is God’s will in the situation? That’s the real question. Was it God’s will for Mike to go antique shopping with his wife, instead of going fishing with Larry? I believe it would be. Not that there is anything wrong with going fishing, and Mike probably should do that sometime. But, of the two activities, only one shows love, by “laying down his life.”
Jesus “laid down his life” in a much more important way than going to the cross. That was by going to the manger. Another way he did it was by washing of feet. He laid down his desires, and his deity, to come to earth and be a servant. In this, he showed us what the scripture means when it says that “God is Love.”
Sometimes, as men, we find it easier to make the “ultimate sacrifice” of dying for our loved ones, country, or duty than to lay ourselves down in the little things. But the reward of laying down our life in the little things is building relationship through showing the character of Christ in our lives.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13